In the following essay, Guerra traces the evolution of voice in Chicana literature through an analysis of “Woman Hollering Creek” and Alma Villanueva's poem “Mother, May I.”

Silenciosa: adj. quiet: person, house, object: noiseless.

Silenciar: v. to muffle, hush up, to cast into oblivion.

So defines and translates the dictionary La Petit Larousse (García, Pelayo y Gross, et al., eds. 1980) the difference between the verb and adjective forms of this word. A derivative of this, “Silenciada” (silenced) forms the past participle form of the verb and can be used both as a participial adjective and as the passive form of the verb in what Noam Chomsky calls the Active...